The city of Aurora is doing its math all wrong. No homebuyer looks at a piece of property that needs renovations and determines the property’s sale price by taking the purported value after construction and subtracting construction costs. Instead, the city should pay Herbert Buch-wald the $77,000 price tag plus the demolition costs for him to demolish the building. If the $1.25 million number holds true, that’s $1.32 million by my calculations.

Why should the taxpayers of Aurora pay more for a piece of property that Buchwald has purposely kept vacant for all these years? If he’d kept the property up since he bought it 30 years ago, perhaps it would be worth the price he’s asking for it.

I hope the Aurora City Council takes a hard look at the numbers and the true value of the purchase.

Kari Kusek, Aurora

This letter was published in the Dec. 19 edition.

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